This week we had the lovely experience of losing an hour of sleep again … at least, most of us here in North America (and later this month, Europe and Israel will follow suit). There are a few holdouts (Arizona, Saskatchewan, Yukon), and I envy them, although of course they have to deal with the fallout of everyone else moving around them.
This semi-annual changing of time zones has never made sense to me, and I think the loss of an hour of sleep is truly a hazard - there are studies that show a spike in car accidents and heart attacks in the few days after a time change, especially this one. There are no documented improvements to productivity, so that argument is a crock.
I do understand why people like DST, once they have got through the pain of the change. It’s nice to have an extra hour of daylight in the evening, although it means there is an extra hour of darkness in the morning, which is not much fun for people who are out and about early in the day (such as children going to school). The debate about simply moving to permanent DST, at least in northern climes where there are significant differences between summer and winter daylight, keeps foundering on the fact that it would be a terrible thing in the winter.
I would personally prefer that everyone just be in the time zone where the sun is directly overhead at noon (which is already tricky given the width of the time zones - we aren’t quite in the right place already), and we stop trying to make nature conform to the rules of the industrial complex we live in. If you want more daylight in the afternoon, maybe work 8-4 instead of 9-5? Summer hours instead of artificial clock changes would make much more sense.
I’d love to know what you think!
I don't mind it though I am always a little confused for the first few days what time it's.